As Houqin robotically walked across the logistic hallway and the parking lot to Xiaoyun’s car, her eyes were still widened in shock.
Once inside the driver’s seat, she was still standing outside. It was almost as if his sudden announcent taken her soul out.
"Hello? You there? Can you go to the passenger seat?" Xiaoyun questioned as he patted her on the shoulder.
"S-Sorry!"
Watching her run off towards the logistic entrance, Xiaoyun let out a small sigh as he closed the car door before rolling down the window.
"Where are you going?" Xiaoyun questioned.
"I-I can’t d-do this. G-Give so ti to process this. I-I’ll tell you w-what I w-want to do t-tomorrow."
"There is no tomorrow. Get back in the car... I won’t drive you to the doctor right now. Just at least tell where you are going."
After slowly driving down the sidewalk for a whole minute, Houqin finally had a change of heart as she stopped and opened the car door.
"C-Can you drive b-back ho?"
"No problem... But can you tell where your ho is? I don’t know what direction I needed to go."
"Just drive down two blocks from here. Y-You’ll see a coffee shop nearby."
As Xiaoyun pressed the gas pedal, the car finally gained speed. Soon, the two could see a coffee shop ahead, next to several apartnt buildings.
"That apartnt."
"Okay."
Pulling the car over to the street side, Houqin exited the car before he could even finish parking it.
"Hey! Wait for !"
Seeing the main apartnt door already closed and Houqin disappearing into the staircase, Xiaoyun was a little annoyed.
"Did I shock her too much? Maybe I shouldn’t have been so direct..." Xiaoyun murmured to himself as he stood outside the building alone.
"Hey, Commander, what are you doing here?"
Xiaoyun quickly turned around, only to see a woman wearing a white logistic uniform standing right there, with a key about to open the door.
"Oh, I ca here to see Houqin. Can you actually open the door for ?"
The woman didn’t hesitate for a second as she opened the door for him, letting him into the apartnt’s main lobby.
"I almost forgot to ask, do you know which floor Houqin lives in?"
"I’m actually her next-door neighbor. I can bring you to her ho if you want, Commander." The woman offered.
"That’s perfect."
As Xiaoyun followed the woman up the stairs to the third floor, they soon arrived at apartnt 305.
"This is her ho."
"Thank you."
The woman quickly walked off to the door on the right, entering inside before closing it, leaving Xiaoyun alone in the hallway.
"Houqin, you inside? Can you open the door? I just wanted to talk—"
Just as Xiaoyun knocked on the door and asked out loud, the door opened on its own as an old couple looked back right at him in the eyes.
"Hello. Um, is Houqin ho?"
"She’s not."
As Houqin’s mother coldly responded, Xiaoyun could visibly see their hostility towards him.
"Ahem, I just want to start by saying sorry. Your daughter’s mission took much longer than any of us had originally expected."
"We know... Do you have a minute to talk, Mr. Governor?" Houqin’s mom asked.
"Of course."
Following her inside the house, Xiaoyun was a little surprised as everything looked not just minimalistic, but borderline empty.
There was barely any furniture. No sofa or kitchen at all. Nowhere to sit other than a few wooden chairs and a table in the living room.
"Mr.Governor, let’s get straight to the point and not beat around the bush."
As Houqin’s father finally spoke up for once, Xiaoyun was more than willing to confront it head-on.
"Is there a problem sowhere?" Xiaoyun questioned.
"We want you to leave our daughter alone. To be more exact, we want you to give her a different job, or just fire her."
"Why?"
Xiaoyun couldn’t understand this sudden request from Houqin’s parents. It just ca out of left field, which threw him off his expectation.
"You, Mr.Governor. With all due respect, you have been causing a lot of unintended consequences for us."
"Like what?"
"First off, you’re a great man, Mr.Governor. You had done nothing wrong, but the newspaper loved to gossip about our daughter with you."
As Houqin’s mom tried to sugarcoat the situation, Houqin’s father quickly stopped her from continuing to let himself chi in.
"We don’t want our daughter to go on a risky tour like the one to Changsha, period. We heard enough lies from you, Governor."
"She told you all everything already?" Xiaoyun softly asked.
"Of course she did. You sent her to Changsha, and she almost died trying to leave it. This is the last ti my daughter is going to work for you."
As both sides showed a clear disdain towards her daughter’s job, Xiaoyun let out a small sigh of relief in his head as Houqin didn’t tell them the full story.
"That was a complete accident. It’s the last ti she’ll ever need to leave the cities. I can promise that she will never go on this kind of mission again."
Despite Xiaoyun’s reassurance, both of them shook their head. They didn’t trust his words, especially considering it took a week for her to return.
"That’s not the only issue. You, Governor, had caused imnse stress for us... Every single blind date we had arranged for our daughter had failed.
All of the n rejected her the mont she said her job title out loud. No one. I an, no one in the neighborhood wanted to marry a woman in such a high position."
The more Houqin’s father ranted about her daughter’s job, the more Xiaoyun began to realize the trouble he had caused for Houqin.
At the sa ti, he was a little surprised by the fact that her parents were setting up a blind date for her in the first place.
"I hope you understand, Governor, she’s our only child and she’s already pushing thirty. She’s going to be past her pri if you—"
"Don’t stay away from her, right? Houqin’s dad, you’re scared that the longer your daughter waits, the harder it will be for her to find a husband?"
Xiaoyun interrupted as he answered it for Houqin’s father, whose face looked a little surprised and happy at the sa ti.
"Thank you, Governor, now you understand—"
"But I’ll have to say no to that."
"What do you an by no, Mr.Governor?"
Houqin’s mother softly asked, holding back her husband from getting up, as his face had the word anger written all over it.
"I can’t, and I won’t fire her unless she wants to quit herself... A parent cannot dictate what their daughter does for a living."
"Mister Chen, do you really want to force our daughter to be a leftover woman? Is that really what you wanted for your employee?"
As Houqin’s father got up from his seat and stared at him right in the eyes, Xiaoyun didn’t feel intimidated at all as he slowly got up from his seat himself.
"I shouldn’t call you two Houqin’s dad and Houqin’s mom... Good afternoon, father-in-law and mother-in-law."
"Huh?"
Both of Houqin’s parent were a little dumbfounded. They were completely frozen in place, just like their daughters earlier.
"Houqin, you’re in the house, right? Do you want to explain it to your parents, or do you want to tell them about it?"
"I can tell them."
As Houqin opened the door and ca out of the room over in the small hallway, both of her parents finally ca back to their senses.
Their faces changed within seconds as they looked over to their daughter with a ferocious look, almost as if they were questioning a prisoner.
"Mom, Dad... h-he proposed to this afternoon."
"Don’t tell you said yes to it." Houqin’s father coldly questioned as he stared back at her, dead in the eyes.
"I... I did agree to it."
"Why? Just why would you do that? I thought you said you don’t like him. You know he is already married to multiple wives—"
"I like him more than those n you guys had recomnded. I-I don’t want to marry a 40-year-old engineer."
Hearing Houqin say it out loud, Xiaoyun was a little surprised. But he didn’t intervene as her parent continued to look towards her in silence.
After a whole minute of standstill, the mother-in-law was the first to accept it as she turned around to look back over to her son-in-law.
"I don’t know what poison you had fed to our daughter, but you’d better treat her fairly, or else we’ll never forgive you."
"I will."
As Xiaoyun looked over to his father-in-law, he was still standing there looking towards his daughter, with a disappointed look on his face.
"I don’t get it. What’s so good in this man that you find him to be better than any of those n I had recomnded outside of age?"
"I..."
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